Providian Trust Tradition and Technology

1.Business context / Key Business drivers: Providian Trust is one of the Top 10 leading trust companies that activate in delivering financial and fiduciary services. Providian runs its business using its 216 subsidiaries network. The main origin of their earnings resides in commercial and residential mortgages, as well as consumer and corporate loans. The CEO of the company, Stephen Walsh, is facing the conflicting situation that was created under Michael LeBlanc’s command. LeBlanc is the senior vice president of Trust, Investment and Treasury and is responsible for leading the company’s reengineering project that is meant to result in the successful implementation of Select One’s main software system-Access Plus-which is already used by Providian’s competitors. The alarming scarcity of control and discipline inside the trust division is one of the key factors that triggered the necessity of creating and implementing this project.
|2. Initiative Objectives |Initiative Benefits |
|-improve front&back offices’ way of managing the |-increase control over customers’ accounts |
|accounts | |
|-centralize trust information |- better and more efficient reporting system |
|- reduce time needed for operations in order to make |-Providian would no longer lose 2-5 millions/year used to make|
|them more efficient (customers would no longer have to|up for these delays/inaccuracy in the statements |
|wait 2-3 months to receive a statement) |- increase business profitability |

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Providian Trust, headquartered in New York, is a financial and fiduciary services company. In 1994, it had 216 branches and managed $49.4 billion in trust assets with a staff of 840 full-time employees. The firm was falling behind the competition because the institutional custody business was becoming extremely technology-intensive, with some of the larger players outsourcing their entire backroom function in order to make large operations more effective. Therefore, a project was initiated to convert the trust division’s outdated information system into a more efficient system using Access Plus, a new trust and custody management software.
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Intensive competitive pressures, client demands, and some internal problems were driving the need for the initiative. Specifically:
1. Competitors were having more advanced systems and technical competitive advantages
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3. Decentralized control and lack of a clear distribution of responsibility
Providian Trust wished to solve the above problems through the implementation of the new system. They also expected that the improved computerized trust system would consolidate and centralize data administration, give trust officers more time to interact with clients, reduce the number of full-time employees from 840 to 660, and save $9.2 million annually.......

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Professor: Jim Slusser
PROVIDIAN TRUST:
TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY (A)
Fenway Cohort
Kamanasish Kundu
1. Business Context/Key Business Drivers
* In 1994, Providian Trust, the tenth largest provider of financial and fiduciary services, slowly slipped away from profitability and competition due to the lack of efficient business processes and information technology.
* The company was headquartered in New York and had three divisions Pension and Institutional Trust Services (PITS), Personal Trust and Trust Operations with a network of 216 branches.
* To address the problems that Providian Trust were facing, Michael LeBlanc, the Senior Vice President of Trust, Investment and Treasury, took the initiative to lead the project aimed at not only implementing new technology but also reengineering Providian Trust’s business processes by implementing a major software system, Access plus, developed by Select One. The project, supposed to last for 20 months, cost $18 million, was finally approved by board members in April, 1994.
* The key driver behind the above initiative was intense client demand on the part of PITS division, lack of control and discipline in the trust division, lack of operation efficiency and outdated reporting system.
2. Initiative Objectives/Benefits
...